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Wednesday, May 29, 2013

A Purchase Decision - Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia

The game in question for this week’s entry is…

Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia

Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia ( Euphoria from now on ) is the 2nd
game by designers Jamey Stegmaier and Alan Stone.

Their first collaboration was Viticulture which was recently
released via Kickstarter.

Euphoria will be published by Stonemaier games ( which I
assume is co-owned by Jamey and Alan ) and is currently up for funding on
Kickstarter.

Game Info

Euphoria plays 2-6 players

Published playing time is 60mins
Mechanics – Worker Placement / Area Control / Resource Management / Variable
Player Powers

How it Might Play

During setup, each player receives 4 recruit cards of which only 2 are kept.
These 2 recruits will determine the player’s unique ability during the course
of the game.

Only 1 of the recruit is active at the start of the game
however, the other is inactive till further requirements are met. Each player also
starts with 2 dice which signify the player’s workers, and one secret agenda
card.

example of some of the recruits and abilities

Euphoria isn’t played in rounds but played from turn to turn
until a player reaches the game winning condition – placing 10 of their
influence tokens on the game board.

During a player’s turn, he/she has 3 options to choose from

1) Complete their Secret Agenda ( can only be done once in
the whole game )

2) Place one available worker on the board ( or more if they
are of the same dice value )

3) Retrieve as many workers as so desired ( paying the
necessary costs )

Each turn seems to flow rather quickly due to the simplicity
of the options available.

But the meat of the game comes from where you may place your
workers, and what benefits they bring and costs they incur to you.

Examples of some actions that a player may take by placing
their workers

1) Get more workers ( at a cost )

2) Help to construct a Market ( failure to build markets
will place restrictions on the players )

3) Gain commodities / resources ( there are 4 different
types of commodities and 3 different types of resources )

4) Visit one of four districts to place influence tokens (
at a cost )

5) Tunnel into a district / Advance allegiance in a faction
( this is how you are able to activated your inactive 2nd recruit )

example of some of the market tiles in the game

Euphoria also presents a slightly different twist to the
worker placement aspect in games.

In Euphoria, there are 3 different types of worker placement
spaces.

The first one is a temporary space where if one player has a
worker placed there, the subsequent player may replace the previous player’s
worker. So no blocking is involved, but you give the previous player their
worker back at no cost.

The second type of space is your typical worker placement
space. Once taken, always taken until the player willingly gives it up or once
the action is completed.

The third and final type is a multi-use space, where any
number of workers may be present. But the catch is that the benefit obtained varies
depending on the total value of the workers in that space ( this is when the
value of the dice / worker is taken into consideration )

So players keep taking turns to place or retrieve workers
until someone manages to place their 10 influence tokens on the board, then
that player is declared the best builder of a better ( or worse ) dystopia.

What I Like ( from reading the rules )

Theme / Setting and Art Style

The first thing that caught my attention for Euphoria was
the setting and the art style. I loved the art in Viticulture and the same
artist – Jacqui Davis – is doing a great job for the look for Euphoria. The
setting of the dystopian world also appeals to me not because I am very much
into science fiction, but rather, it is unique and different from a lot of
other games out there.

Individual Player Powers

For those who listen to our podcast enough, you will know
that I absolutely love individual player powers. And Euphoria has this by means
of their recruit cards.

There are 48 unique recruit cards so each game will play out
differently and will encourage the use of different strategies each time. Love
the idea.

Market Tiles

The market tiles in Euphoria bring a very small push your
luck element to the game. They are assigned randomly and all face down, so you
don’t actually know what market it is that you are attempting to construct. All
you know is that, if you don’t construct it, there will be a penalty imposed on
you that may be one that you really didn’t want to happen ( some of the
penalties are much harsher compared to others ).

There are 12 market tiles of which only 6 are used in each
game.

Management of Workers

In Euphoria, one use of the dice values for your workers is
that, if it exceeds your threshold ( which is determined by your knowledge
level ), one of your workers will run away. This helps to ensure that players
can’t just ride a worker-generation strategy to victory. Having more workers
requires you to have proper planning and management, and of course some luck.

What I Dislike ( from reading the rules )

Possible Imbalance of Recruit Abilities

The multiple recruits is a double edged sword to me. I love
the variability and the options they give, but also, it seems that some of the
abilities may not be very balanced. And if you know me, as much as I like
player powers, I dislike imbalanced player powers.

Scalability for less players

Euphoria is strange in a way that I start to wonder how it
scales with fewer players.

Most games have scaling problems with a greater number of
players, but in Euphoria, it seems to be the other way round.

The action spaces do not adjust to the number of players (
unlike how Viticulture does ), so I can see it being tight / just right for 5-6
players, but with 2-3 players it seems that everyone may be able to do
something they want.

There are a ton of action spaces on the board, and with
everyone only starting with 2 workers, in a 3 player game, 6 workers can easily
find themselves a home on the board. And this may significantly reduce the
tension in the game.

Poor use of Secret Agenda Cards

The secret agenda cards sound like something that I usually
like in games, but this is hardly the case. The secret agenda cards are only
different in name, artwork and requirements, but the benefits for completing
them are the same.

This is truly an area of wasted opportunity.

Giving a one time benefit would have greatly made the cards
more thematic and different from each other.

At the end of it all, I decided to go ahead and make the push for Euphoria to
be published ( not that it wont be published without my monetary offering
anyway, haha ).
I was greatly impressed by the production value for Viticulture, and I expect
the same top-notch production value for Euphoria.

If you would like to hear more about Viticulture and Euphoria, do listen to
Episode 10 of our podcast where we interview Jamey himself and put him in the (
very ) hot seat.

basically
the idea of "A Purchase Decision" is just to state out what i thought
of while deliberating whether or not to buy a particular game.

i'm
not sure how each of you decide on what game to purchase ( art,
newness, designer, etc etc ), but for me, each purchase goes through a
very vigorous and tough selection process, which usually also includes
the reading through of the rule-set.
so i thought i would just
list through my thoughts on how the game is going to play like and what i
considered before i made ( or did not make ) the purchase

if you do read through it, i hope that whatever i had to say might help as well in your game purchasing decision ! :)